I have no idea how Patti's reply ended up on the TGF list, but I'm
responding here. I deleted most of my original post, for space reasons.
Patti asked:
>isn't it true that note fields for most
> programs are plain text? I found that was a problem in having citations
> formatted properly not being able to italicize titles.
Patti,
Reunion note fields offer some formatting beyond plain text.
For phrases within a note:
text color
plain, bold, italic or underline styles (choices limited by font.
Not all fonts offer italics, for example)
Font may be specified for the note field, used for all text in that
field. Different notes fields can have different specified fonts.
For example, I could specify Times for the BirthEvidence note fields and
Helvetica for MilitaryEvidence, if for some reason I wanted to (which I
don't).
In a note field the reference number is raised, etc, just like it would
appear in a word processing document.
Source titles are a source field. The text style for a source field
can be user defined: italic, plain, bold, underlined and/or "put quotes
around the field". In addition Reunion users can say whether or not
the field is included in endnotes. And, if it is included, whether
there is a label prefix and what that prefix should be.
So, my titles are italicized in my citations because I made the setting
for them to appear that way. If for some strange reason I wanted to put
quotes around them, I could have quoted italicized titles. <g> I
could not have bold italicized titles.
I haven't gotten into GEDCOMs at all. Seems to me the trick is to use
the standard defined tags (and know what they are to begin with). I
have no idea what the GEDCOM standard offers regarding source field
tags. It may not be an issue with the genie software, but a reflection
of what's possible in the standard. Of course, with users like me who
like to define their own fields, etc, GEDCOM adds another dimension to
be considered. If/when I want to export or import GEDCOMs I'll have to
review my tags and make sure they comply with the GEDCOM standard so my
export/import will work the way I want it to. I do not know how
formatted text is handled in a GEDCOM transfer, but, again, it seems to
me on the receiving end the fields will (should) hopefully have ways to
format the text in them. What happens to note fields, I wonder, which
in Reunion can contain multiple styles, some of which other genie
software do not allow their users (text color is one example, that I
know of).
Linda
____________
Linda Gardner
Massachusetts
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [TGF] [APG Public List] best mac genealogy program
> From: PLHGenealogy at gmail.com> Date: Fri, November 12, 2010 11:18 am
> To: transitional-genealogists-forum at rootsweb.com>>> great post, Linda. I gave up on Reunion, too, because of the source issues.
> I like what you've done with your note field. Something that someone
> pointed out is that the note fields are always exported in gedcoms whereas
> the source templates don't export so well.
>> I also have the added problem in wanting my gedcom to export nicely, with
> sources intact, into my online TNG program. The only one that did that well
> was RootsMagic. And that was using the Freeform. As John said, Reunion
> doesn't allow you to use semi-colons, so you can't put pieces together. It
> does work to use either the free form or the "title" field in Reunion.
> Placing citations free-form fashion in one of the title fields allows you
> to use whatever punctuation you like, although you have to add html
> (<i> ... </i>) to get a section of it italicized. However, the size of the
> title field is limited and if you try to place a long citation, eg, NARA
> sources, you aren't allowed enough characters.
>> Right now I've gone to entering my sources into TNG directly.
>> Oh, another thing -- Linda, isn't it true that note fields for most
> programs are plain text? I found that was a problem in having citations
> formatted properly not being able to italicize titles. Again, since I
> export to TNG, I added the code myself, but if you're going to print
> reports, you wouldn't want that.
>> Patti
>> On Nov 12, 2010 9:40am, linda at fpr.com wrote:
> > Larry wrote:
>>>> > >I don't see a need to have source citation templates in a gen program,
> > so that's not a problem for me. Some simple way to attach >source
> > citations to facts fills my needs. I think there's too much potential of
> > ending up with something that doesn't match the >purposes that I create
> > source citations for, when you fill in blanks in some template.
>>>> > I agree. Sometimes it seems to me that the presence or absence of
>> > source templates is given unjustified weight when evaluating software,
>> > no matter what style or system those templates model. As you wrote,
>> > Larry, different output purposes call for different formats. In
>> > addition, citation models do change and evolve.
>>>> > What I'd like in my genealogy software regarding sources:
>
etc.....